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To: Joerg Wunsch <joerg_wunsch@uriah.heep.sax.de>
cc: Greg Lehey <grog@lemis.com>, Brian Somers <brian@awfulhak.org>,
        John-Mark Gurney <gurney_j@efn.org>, freebsd-bugs@hub.freebsd.org,
        freebsd-hackers@FreeBSD.ORG
Subject: Re: kern/5404: slXX slip (tun & ppp) interfaces always point to point 
In-reply-to: Your message of "Sun, 04 Jan 1998 11:05:21 +0100."
             <19980104110521.14399@uriah.heep.sax.de> 
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Date: Sun, 04 Jan 1998 16:29:33 +0000
From: Brian Somers <brian@awfulhak.org>
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[.....]
> other route.  ISTR Brian suggested a second route should be derived
> from the (bogus) netmask, and installed {too or instead}.  So per
> Brian's suggestion:
> 
>   ifconfig foobar0 1.2.3.4 1.4.5.6 netmask 0xffffff00
> 
> would have implied
> 
>     route add 1.4.5.6 -iface foobar0
>     route add -net 1.4.5.0 -netmask 0xffffff00 1.4.5.6
> 
> while the existing behaviour (and what i think is the Right Thing) is
> only the first of both routes.

Not quite.  I was suggesting that instead of the first, we have the 
second, or in fact

  route add 1.2.3.4 -netmask 0xffffff00 1.4.5.6

If you specify a 0xffffffff netmask, you get the same as the existing 
stuff *always* does.

The real purpose, as you've already suggested, is that you get the 
associated broadcast address.  With this broadcast address, all sorts 
of other things work (timed, rwhod, nmbd etc.), assuming that you've 
got a proxy arp setup on the other end.

Of course, this implies that the destination address isn't actually 
required - as with a real network.

So,

what if we had

  ifconfig tun0 inet 1.2.3.4 netmask 0xffffff00

(note the lack of a dst address).  This would mean that we could 
specify tunX (or slX or pppX) as being a non-point-to-point.  The 
automatic route would be created exactly as with networks.

So, to summarise (and refine my original suggestion), I think we 
should be allowed to specify *either* a dst address *or* a netmask. 
If both are specified, you get no netmask - as things currently work.

Whaddaya think ?

[.....]
> -- 
> cheers, J"org
> 
> joerg_wunsch@uriah.heep.sax.de -- http://www.sax.de/~joerg/ -- NIC: JW11-RIPE
> Never trust an operating system you don't have sources for. ;-)

-- 
Brian <brian@Awfulhak.org>, <brian@FreeBSD.org>, <brian@OpenBSD.org>
      <http://www.Awfulhak.org>
Don't _EVER_ lose your sense of humour....